Feeling a little depressed at times is a normal part of being a human being. Ordinarily these feelings disappear after a few hours or at worst maybe a few days. For some people, there are times though, when depression takes hold and the feelings last for weeks or even months. This depth of feeling over a prolonged period of time, is what is known as a depression disorder. These various types of depression are called Clinical depression. Clinical depression needs to be treated as soon as possible.
If you are suffering from Clinical depression some sort of treatment will be needed to help you to control the symptoms and to prevent the risk of the depression becoming life threatening. There are three main types of Clinical depression. They are Unipolar or Major depression, Bipolar or Manic depression and Chronic or Dysthymia depression.
Each of these depression disorders can affect a sufferer differently. As a rule, people who suffer from Major Clinical depression will experience recurrent attacks where they will experience a severely depressed state that can last from a few hours to a few months. Whilst in this state, the sufferer tends to feel absolutely worthless and exhibit a serious loss of motivation. Feelings of complete hopelessness and in also suicidal thoughts and feelings may be present.
The sufferers of Bipolar Clinical depression experience the same symptoms as those with Major Clinical depression but in addition their moods will swing from severely depressed towards a high euphoric state of mania. Then their mood will drop and they will again experience feelings of extreme low mood. While sufferers are in the high mood they can exist for long periods of time with almost no food and no sleep, they are also at risk of losing all their money and material possessions in this phase as they cannot control their impulses to spend or gamble.
During the manic phase, sufferers believe that they can accomplish anything and they will also feel invincible. These people sometimes believe that they have a personal communication link to God or their own personal favourite celebrities. The other pattern of behaviour that sufferers of Bipolar Clinical depression exhibit is a very high thinking and speech process.
While sufferers of Chronic Clinical depression will not experience any of these symptoms they will suffer a prolonged feeling of being sad and depressed. They will experience no sense of personal satisfaction from any of their various day to day tasks and there maybe occasions when their depressed state could cause them to feel suicidal.
Any of these forms of depression are in their various ways severely debilitating to the sufferer. However, by the nature of the illness, for any type of depression to be classified as a disorder it must have been experienced for quite a while without disappearing. While Chronic Clinical depression is not always life threatening, both Major Clinical depression and Bipolar Clinical depression need to be treated as soon as possible due to the added risk. Your doctor or physician can prescribe medication and different support mechanisms, should you be concerned that you are experiencing any of these forms of Clinical depression.